Lindsey Graham’s Old Comments About Impeachment Come Back To Haunt Him

Lindsey Graham’s Old Comments About Impeachment Come Back To Haunt HimThe South Carolina senator had a seemingly different view in 1999.Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) once believed that it didn’t take a conviction or even a crime for impeachment.

He made the case not today, with President Donald Trump in office, but in 1999 when President Bill Clinton was impeached and Graham was a member of the House of Representatives.

“You don’t have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this Constitutional Republic,” Graham said in a 1999 clip posted on Twitter by MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell.

He said a president could get the boot if Congress decides “your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds”:

“Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.”

Graham was one of the House prosecutors during the Clinton impeachment proceedings.

“You couldn’t live with yourself knowing that you were going to leave a perjuring judge on the bench,” he said in 1999. “Ladies and gentlemen, as hard as it may be for the same reasons, cleanse this office.”

Graham also called for allowing the process to “continue without interference” and for special counsel Robert Mueller to “conclude his investigation sooner rather than later for the benefit of the nation.”